Campylobacter prevalence in chicken to
be 10.66% in the same quarter.
Foodservice customers seek
dependable food safety
Chick-;l-A’s purchasing manager Brian
Coan said, “From a foodservice operator’s
perspective, we value a supplier community
that has robust and sustainable food safety
requirements in place. Suppliers that have
state-of-the-art operations and cutting-edge
food safety programs help instill trust and
We really value a sup-
plier community that has
robust and sustainable
food safety requirements
in place.”
Brian Coan, Chick-fil-A
con;dence. Those are the biggest things that
customers put in our hands when they walk
through our doors or those of any other foodservice operator. In the foodservice business,
we need to have con;dence that any product
we prepare is of the utmost food safety.”
A lender’s assessment
Carl Blackham, managing director of the
food and consumer group at Harris Bank, described how food safety performance sets the
tone for investment. “The risk of food safety
is a risk to the enterprise and something that
we assess in our lending. If an industry has
persistent food safety problems, it is less attractive to put capital in those businesses. That’s
“The risk of food safety
is a risk to the enterprise
and something that we
assess in our lending.”
Carl Blackham
Harris Bank
true from the standpoint of outside investors
and lenders. There is also reputational risk.
How those risks are mitigated is important.
Investors would have to consider whether or
not they want to invest in an industry that has
a negative perception in the public arena.”
Public sentiment also in;uences the level
of research-and-development investment by
“The consumer drives the
political environment,
which drives the regula-
tory environment.”
Jon Schaeffer, Pfizer
suppliers in technologies that potentially enhance the industry’s ability to produce safer
products. Dr. Jon Schaeffer, director of veterinary services for P;zer, said, “The consumer
ultimately drives the political environment,
which drives the regulatory environment.
That affects our ability to make the investments necessary to produce biologicals and
pharmaceuticals that address both poultry
health and food safety concerns.”
Progress in reducing Salmonella
prevalence
Dramatic progress has been made in
reducing the prevalence of Salmonella
in processed chicken in recent years.
“The decrease in Salmonella numbers
has been spectacular over the past six
years,” said Dr. Bruce Stewart-Brown,
senior vice president of food safety and
quality, Perdue Farms. “The incidence of
The industry has to figure out how to talk about
non-perfect messages.”
Bruce Stewart-Brown
Perdue Farms
Salmonella in large plants was 4.5%, according to the results published by FSIS
in the most recent quarter.” Compare that
to prevalence of nearly 15% in 2005 and
around 20% in 1995.
Less is known about progress in reducing the prevalence of Campylobacter
in poultry (FSIS only recently began
collecting the numbers), but it is believed
that the processing interventions that
reduce Salmonella have also cut the incidence of Campylobacter. FSIS reported
Reinvestment above the level of
depreciation
Capital for investment is needed for
the industry to be able to continue achiev-
ing reductions in foodborne pathogens in
poultry. As Blake Lovette said, “We must
be willing to continually reinvest capital
in new technology and infrastructure to
continue to produce safe food.”
Harris Bank’s Carl Blackham put a
number on that level of reinvestment,
and it’s more than in some other indus-
tries where reinvestment at the level of
depreciation is adequate. “In the poultry
industry, more investment is needed,”
he said. “A good number is between
125% and 150% of depreciation. That’s
because there are new food safety tech-
nologies coming and opportunities to
improve processes and lower costs.”
Seek continual process
improvement
Once the infrastructure and technologies are in place, continual improvement
of processes is the key to insuring the food
safety of poultry.
“Many of the industry’s processing
plants achieve around a 7 log bacterial reduction from the front end to the back end of
the processing plant,” Stewart-Brown said.
“A 7 log bacterial reduction is equivalent to
what would be achieved in cooking, so that’s
an impressive reduction in microbiology.
It is achieved through attention to detail
and things like optimizing evisceration
procedures.”
Untapped opportunities for
pathogen reduction
Ideally, four or ;ve food safety interventions are needed in a plant to achieve a 7 log
reduction, and those interventions typically
involve online carcass sprays, online reprocessing treatments, chemical interventions
in the chiller, and post-chill sprays and dips.
However, some other processing interventions are largely untapped.
